I recently started to play PoN for the first time and as the game is quite complex I have some newbie questions Is there any way to see, in some kind of overview, which country produces what amount of goods? I am playing Prussia and one of my mission is to produce the most chemicals and dyer, but I have no clue how to evaluate my current production in comparison to other countries. At the moment I am trying to build extraction sites wherever I can, to increase my output and strengthen my economy. Railroads and industries as well inbetween. Mostly checking the B and F4 screens for help. Somehow seems logical, but I have no clue if I am on the right track. Difficult to see.

To be honest the at start 'missions' don't really seem to work. I don't think I've ever met one of them so I'd just put that to one side.

If you have the patience you can just about work out production of primary materials (to a point) but secondary industrial production is very hard (impossible?) to work out.

As Prussia, I'd get rails/coal in place and then steel. Look for anything that counts as a luxury - not sure you have any domestic production available though. Rail is invaluable as you get a production bonus plus the military advantage. Early game Manuf goods are in short supply so those + spare coal are things you can usefully trade away for consumer items.

Have a peek at my old AAR 'Manuf Italy'. I realise its about Italy etc but it may give you some ideas how the PoN economy/trade model works - unforturnately the old index no longer works so you may have to wade through some pages to find the posts that are immediately relevant.

AJE The Hero, The Traitor and The BarbarianPoN Manufacturing Italy; A clear bright sunRoP The Mightiest Empires FallWIA Burning down the Houses; Wars in America; The Tea Wars

Thanks a lot for the advice, Loki! I will definitely have a look at your AAR to get a better understanding of the economy details. At least my coal production and rail infrastructure are on the way already

I have another question regarding events. As I am playing as Prussia, I wonder if the war for Schleswig-Holstein is resolved via events? I am in early 1852 now and nothing happened so far. Does anyone know, if I have to declare war myself to start the conflict or does it still happen? Historically seen, the war was fought between 1848 and 51. Might there be a bug, so it just doesn't fire?

Quirk wrote:I have another question regarding events. As I am playing as Prussia, I wonder if the war for Schleswig-Holstein is resolved via events? I am in early 1852 now and nothing happened so far. Does anyone know, if I have to declare war myself to start the conflict or does it still happen? Historically seen, the war was fought between 1848 and 51. Might there be a bug, so it just doesn't fire?

Quick look is the set are in the 'Duchies Crisis' file.

My interpretation is the London Protocol 1852 can fire any turn after 1/1/1852 but has a low probability (5%) so may take some time.

This will lower German and Austrian relationships with Denmark.

This is followed by the Schleswig Holstein 1863 event which should give you and Austria CBs on Denmark - as well as worsening relations again. This can happen between 1863 and 1865 with a very high chance. Its not connected to the London Protocol event so will happen regardless of that one.

The decision tree then flips to Austria. If its human it gets a complex set of choices, if its AI it gets the Duchies War event with a war. If you join in (which I'd advise) the Duchies Captured event will kick in transferring the Duchies from Denmark to Holstein.

This then sets off the reform crisis 1866 event which should give a human controlled Prussia an event that can trigger annexation (a Prussian AI does this automatically)

You'll end up with bad relations with Austria and the two provinces but around 1866.

I think the only major change I made to this chain was to remove the related link to the Franco-Prussian war event chain.

The London Protocol already fired early 1852, so the event chain is still on track. Good, I do not like to start historical wars without an event.Do you know if it is possible to reach the "Greater Germany" unification via events? I currently have the option to start the Zollverein, though I would to try to achieve a unification with Austria, if possible.

The London Protocol already fired early 1852, so the event chain is still on track. Good, I do not like to start historical wars without an event.Do you know if it is possible to reach the "Greater Germany" unification via events? I currently have the option to start the Zollverein, though I would to try to achieve a unification with Austria, if possible.

Not quite but there are two routes.

You'll find that war with Austria is 'encouraged' with tensions and free CBs but you can sit it out. This will, in short term cost you the SGF.

War - and winning - with France is essential. Victory wil get you a unified Germany and Alsace-Lorraine ... and a long term problem as in the end France and Russia will find common cause against you.

The alternative is that playing the cards and encouraging unity should give you a peaceful route sometime in the mid-1870s. I'm a bit less sure if this really works as I've never played Prussia and an AI Prussia gets several helps to push it along the war path so its very hard to judge. My feeling is that Italy needs the alternative as its hard to deal with a powerful Austria, Prussia should have the military capacity to carve out the historic route

Oh, and one more question....I am running the latest patch 1.04.5 (I think). Is there anything else I should apply? Like modifications users made? For example some texts seem to be missing. Does someone have some kind of oversight? I have seen some mods in different threads, but can't seem to find them and I have no clue, which fixes are mandatory for the playing experience.

The latest patch includes almost all of the previously posted 'good ideas' so this should be enough.

A couple of things Prussia can do to enhance unification. If you post troops in 'friendly' state you wish to incorporate they gradually move loyalty to Prussia. You can also do this with the two Denmark regions.I have not yet attacked France nor gain unification, but I think I am on the verge of unification without needed to attack France as all potential members of the new empire are very friendly to Prussia.

Good to know! Should help me with the unifiction. Never tried to station troops anywhere else than on my soil. But isn't the war with France mandatory for the unification? Thought I read something like that here on the forum somewhere. Did not look into the event file, though, to not spoil anything.

I have read the same posts about the 'mandatory' invasions of France. But as I made the serious error of allying with France, I am attempting to find an alternative path.Certainly if I were starting this game from scratch I would keep a hostile attitude toward France until unification.

Without offering too many spoilers, you can unify without beating France but ...

you'll only get Alsace and Lorraine as a reward for capturing Paris

If you do this then you get the S German states automatically and the full set of colonial cards (in 1871-2). This also carries a large VP bonus - of the size that can make a real difference to your chances of overtaking the UK into the end game.

If you don't, you still get these but later on (prob sometime in 1875) and a very small VP bonus

As far as I know there are no long term issues to not holding Alsace-Lorraine (its not a precondition to any late game events). Also regardless of unification, you'll get the German colonies in the early 1880s.

Few points to watch out for. The Ems events will trigger massive unrest in France unless it attacks you. A player may decide to ignore this and take the unrest, the AI is most likely to respond historically. So if your France is AI, you're going to have to fight in any case.

Picking up on Quirk's other question.

The .05 patch is comprehensive and includes all the events and ideas discussed (Pocus altered the .exe to hopefully limit the problem of the too large Austrian army).

Edit:

the chain will worsen your relationships with France. There are no tests for existing treaties but there is a regular test that you are not already at war. So oddly if you want to disrupt the chain, go to war early, otherwise channel your inner-Bismarck and wait.

I am currently in year 1857 and my is it hard to get ahead regarding prestige. I am on position 7 and France has an army 1.5 times as big as mine. My colonial empire is a joke, though I guess that's due to the missing options. Still, interesting game, though often I can only skip turns...

Quirk wrote:I am currently in year 1857 and my is it hard to get ahead regarding prestige. I am on position 7 and France has an army 1.5 times as big as mine. My colonial empire is a joke, though I guess that's due to the missing options. Still, interesting game, though often I can only skip turns...

I don't think there is much you can do to force the pace early game. Your best early route to an Empire is to win a war and take a colony but the problem is that you probably can't even touch GB and may struggle against France?

If you need to build prestige, you could gamble on a localised war with Russia over Poland. I'm not sure you can actually capture anything permanently (not sure what you could claim in Poland) but winning battles and capturing Warsaw for a while will all generate quite a nice boost.

But it is basically a period to build up your industry etc. Remember that the later generations of the factories generate prestige so its good to get a stock of level #1 built early (upgrade is cheaper than a clean build at the higher levels).

Quirk wrote:And sadly I know see the first major bugs: Lost a thousand prestige without a reason. Just went from 5000 to 4000 in one turn. And Austria has an army 4 times as big as mine. Nice...

Why a bug, hover over the prestige number (top left hand of the game screen) and it'll tell you why any changes occured.

One possibility is if you have been sending out 'support' and alliances these can come back to hit you. If you sign a defensive alliance and your partner is attacked you take a prestige loss - in effect its a statement to the world that your backing is meaningless. I can't think of any 1850s event that carries that penalty so my suspicion is it would be part of the diplomatic process?

loki100 wrote:I don't think there is much you can do to force the pace early game. Your best early route to an Empire is to win a war and take a colony but the problem is that you probably can't even touch GB and may struggle against France?

If you need to build prestige, you could gamble on a localised war with Russia over Poland. I'm not sure you can actually capture anything permanently (not sure what you could claim in Poland) but winning battles and capturing Warsaw for a while will all generate quite a nice boost.

But it is basically a period to build up your industry etc. Remember that the later generations of the factories generate prestige so its good to get a stock of level #1 built early (upgrade is cheaper than a clean build at the higher levels).

That is basically what I am doing right now, building up my industry. Though I think I built a lot, close to all mines are finished, I still have no idea how to compare my development to the other major powers. Besides the prestige and army size, are there any other indicators I am overlooking?

I try to avoid war at the moment, as I think I am in no position to win against another bigger country. Only fighting in the "colonies" and already lost around 30k men. Hoping for the German-Danish war to give me some first blood and reputation.

I do not even know how I fare research wise. I usually pay for around 2 to 4 inventions, but it seems that other countries already use some kind of cruiser, I fear I am far behind.

loki100 wrote:Why a bug, hover over the prestige number (top left hand of the game screen) and it'll tell you why any changes occured.

One possibility is if you have been sending out 'support' and alliances these can come back to hit you. If you sign a defensive alliance and your partner is attacked you take a prestige loss - in effect its a statement to the world that your backing is meaningless. I can't think of any 1850s event that carries that penalty so my suspicion is it would be part of the diplomatic process?

Well, that was what I first did, but there were only the gains listed like every other round....something like from 5028 prestige to 4051 with a gain of 23 prestige points....no hint why I lost around 1k. But maybe you are right regarding my defensive alliances. I have alliances with close to all the minor German states and they have been in some wars where a white peace was signed due to no military clashes. I cannot remeber if that happened in the round where I lost the prestige...and 1k? Seems like a lot to me.

Prussia has been a pain launching wars against Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.

So perhaps picking on European minors is a strategy you could explore.

Haven't seen the end of any of these wars so not sure if Prussia gains anything although they have occupied all the territory, so I guess they get the production?

Austria seems to concentrate on crushing Turkey and Piedmont.

For GBR the economic strategy is to build anything you can and trade for anything available, especially luxuries, as I rely on Loki's advice about using excise duty to generate the money needed. Also, I turn off conversion of food to canned goods, the conversion of gold and gems to money, the using of ammunition and supplies so i can sell these. After a while you have to cut tax rates back because you have too much money. In spite of this you end up with very high militancy.

You'll find that war with Austria is 'encouraged' with tensions and free CBs but you can sit it out. This will, in short-term cost you the SGF.

War - and winning - with France is essential. Victory wil get you a unified Germany and Alsace-Lorraine ... and a long term problem as in the end France and Russia will find common cause against you.

The alternative is that playing the cards and encouraging unity should give you a peaceful route sometime in the mid-1870s. I'm a bit less sure if this really works as I've never played Prussia and an AI Prussia gets several helps to push it along the war path so its very hard to judge. My feeling is that Italy needs the alternative as its hard to deal with a powerful Austria, Prussia should have the military capacity to carve out the historic route

Sorry for necroposting but you misled him a bit

"You'll find that war with Austria is 'encouraged' with tensions and free CBs but you can sit it out. This will, in short term cost you the SGF."

Nope, war with austria is hardcoded to start from 1866, with 15% possibility each turn (it only checks date and if you at war with aus, fra, gba and ita), and it' completely unrelated to German unification - only thing it gives you a bunch of unification decisions.

NGF can be formed after 1860, after Hannover, Sachsen, Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Damrstadt say OK to unification (which will happen when loyalty to Prussia there is higher than 65), nothing more. Next stage is franco-prussian war, event chain is a bit broken there, because capturing paris give only one region, not both Elsass and Lotharingia, because of typo, chinese Lushun is mentioned instead of one of those regions, so event file should be fixed manually before fighting war.

Peaceful way to complete unification is to wait until 1872 with approval from Baden, Wurttemberg, and Bavaria they join NGF and it will be transformed into Germany in 1975. BTW, Victory Points award is the same as if forming it 1871 - 1000 VP.